


Hair Of The Dog

by WhoLenny



Category: Archie Comics, Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: A deep dive into the introspective coping mechanisms of an addict in denial, Addiction, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, F/F, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Sex Work, Some fluff too though dw, Strippers & Strip Clubs, cheryl does not cope well, flashbacks a plenty, in times of loss, plot on plot, respectfully done I assure you, takes place in the space of an evening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:47:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22547290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhoLenny/pseuds/WhoLenny
Summary: The sweet, warm, molasses burn of alcohol. It cures all ills and heals one’s soul.You lost her, Cheryl. But you can cope... all you need is a drink.You’re not dependent. It’s never too much.Drop for fucking drop.Alas, be careful, Cheryl...Don’t end up like your mother.
Relationships: Cheryl Blossom & Toni Topaz, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz
Comments: 46
Kudos: 191





	1. 2,243.97 Millilitres.

**Author's Note:**

> A new story. I assure you this will be tastefully and tentatively done, but with what is hopefully a flash of reality. 
> 
> This fic will mainly contain Choni interactions. However, if any mentions of stripping, sex work, or alcoholism are triggering to you please be aware of the content of this fic. Any use of misogynistic language or reference to addiction is not intended to harm or offend.
> 
> Enjoy.

An errant raindrop slipped gracefully from a canopy, spattering into a collected pool below and running freely along the gutter, catching one last glint of a streetlamp before acquiescing to its final resting place and pouring into the drain.

The rain had stopped, half an hour or so ago, and the night’s sky had cleared of the clouds that had carried it, giving way instead to the crisp infiniteness of a star-dotted sky.

It was cold.

Condensation from rooves above lifting mistily into the air, beautifully backlit by the hum of city illumination and faint moonlight.

And it was late too.

Not a soul could be seen wandering through the innocuous backstreet, eerily silent and littered with dark doorways within which shadows waited and watched.

Cheryl didn’t belong here.

The echoes of her footsteps had never been heard upon these paving-stones by such expensive shoes.

Pretty little rich girls did not frequent these sordid parts.

Upon an empty street.

Beneath an empty sky.

Yet here she was.

Because s _he too_ was empty.

Cheryl Blossom was **empty**.

She hadn’t wanted to admit it.

But that was what she had become.

A shallow husk of a woman whose head contained nothing but chaos, swirling and lashing and writhing and howling and beating it’s claws against the inside of her mind until all she could do to silence it was pop a cork and fill a glass and bleed that fucking bottle dry.

Drop for fucking drop.

Night after fucking night.

Until the numbness soothed her and her confusion was dumbed and she awoke in her apartment on the comforted lines of her Thomas Blakemore couch, mouth stained red with Merlot instead of lipstick, and the sickly taint of responsibility flashing viciously on her phone in the form of texts and missed calls from the evening she had let pass her by.

And, most recently, should she have been too eager in her haste to close her eyes from her memories and fall asleep before she had drained the wine bottle to its hilt, she had found herself reaching for it in the morning. Like a relic in a church fire, against all screaming will in her body to stop and get the fuck out of this mess, she would perch upon the upholstery and tell herself that she shouldn’t be doing this, that this was becoming a problem. But then she would wrap her hands around that holy, priceless elixir and push her lips around the rim and sup at its fruity communion with a desperate dependence that she had hoped never to encounter.

Drop for _fucking drop_.

And then she would close her eyes. And she would breathe. She would shower. She would throw any evidence into the trash. She would make her excuses at work and to friends. She would drink coffee to mask the headache and dull the sickness. She would toil late into the evenings to occupy her thoughts. Then she would return home. And she would fight it, dear god she would try. But then she would let her bag fall slowly from her shoulder and step out of her Louboutins onto cold, hard tiles as she spied the jagged chunk missing from the corner of her marble kitchen counter top. And the memories of the hands that had caused said affliction to the stone, and the memories of the body attached to those hands and the perfect little person who had lived within that beautiful body and once spread such a joyful presence in this now hollow home would come flooding back with a violent, deafening potency, and before she knew it two bottles had been emptied and she was awake the next morning to start it all again.

Empty once more.

She had to stop.

She had convinced herself.

It was simply not good for her health.

But beyond that, however, more pertinently, her hands had begun to tremor at work.

And restorative painting of priceless works of art could not be done properly in the presence of the ‘red wine shakes’.

And she would _not_ lose her career.

She vowed it.

Her bank account was sufficiently abundant for her to live lavishly without having to dirty her hands a single day in her life but by _God_ she refused to lose another thing that she loved….

She closed her eyes, lips pressed tightly together.

A neon sign hummed above her, the dull street lights flickering spots of hazy yellow from their bulbs against the patchwork of the rain-drenched side walk.

She breathed in a damp lungful and curled her nose at the bouquet of smoke and sweat and cheap perfume that greeted her.

She pulled her coat around her further and felt a sodden cigarette butt relent beneath her red sole as she paced.

She shouldn’t be here.

It all felt so wrong.

So _deviant_.

She sighed, breath puffing mistily past her red lips.

Betty had told her she should try martial arts. Channel her anger.

Veronica suggested yoga, or poker. Apparently the combination of flexibility and deception would be good for inner peace.

Cheryl scoffed at the memory.

Josie had told her simply and succinctly that she needed to _‘Sage your apartment. Get a haircut. Light a damn candle. And open your fucking heart again.’_

_Anything to **forget**_.

But she didn’t want to; she didn’t want to open her heart again.

She wasn’t fucking _ready_.

Her therapist had suggested, behind the lens of $800 spectacles placed perfectly upon the end of her pinched nose, that she… _‘face up to the past and take ownership of her micro-aggressions and legacies of rejection and abandonment without letting them manifest deeper and fuel her tendencies toward narcissism and self-destruction.’_

But as articulate and accurate, and _expensive_ , as those words had been, Cheryl Blossom never had been one to listen to authority figures.

No.

It had been, in fact, from Kevin of all people whose commentary had finally flipped the switch in her head.

_“Maybe you just miss the closeness. The touch.”_

He had slurred it drunkenly to her over the phone one evening; offhand and casual.

_“You know… being **wanted**. Seen. Attention. It all happened so fast, Cheryl. And it was just so… God. Well, of course you know what I mean. You don’t just get over not having those things anymore after having them every day. Intimacy is imperative. Essential. We all have needs. It doesn’t just go away. You know… Joaquin used to talk about a place downtown… if you wanted… it’s just a suggestion…some people he knew worked there… very discreet…”_

She had sat in silence as he had rambled on, committing to the suggestion with no more than a distracted hum, but had scribbled the name of the establishment onto the back of an envelope and forgotten it into a drawer.

Until tonight.

She had been barefoot on the kitchen tiles once again.

Heart pounding and chest aching and her fingers itching to touch themselves to the welcoming chill of a bottle.

So keen was she to drown her shrieking mind in sorrowful bacchanalia that she’d foregone even a glass, opting instead to drink wantonly straight from the source.

But no corkscrew had been in sight. Wherever she had thrown it in the stupor of her third conquered bottle last night was still concealing its presence and she’d growled impatiently, tugging all of her body weight against the drawer handle and scrambling a neatly manicured hand inside to hopefully discover another.

Suddenly, she had stopped.

There before her, beneath the skin of her fingertips that still held a faint staining of paint from the day, lay the envelope.

She had taken a shallow breath, glancing at the bottle and using the last few straining moments of her sobriety to come to a lucid realisation.

She could drink that wine. Every last ounce of its perfectly aged, two hundred dollar, blood red molasses contents. Its enchanting flavour profile wasted on her impatient tongue, barely even tasting anything but the burn these days.

She could drink it.

And then she could drink another.

And it could help her forget.

_If only for a night._

But come the morn, it would either be vomited up or pissed away into a toilet bowl.

And she’d still be empty.

And that was the fucking problem.

She’d still be _empty_.

And that enslaving liquor, though nourishing to her melancholy, could not feed that vacant space. It couldn’t tend to a bleeding palm as she cleared away a broken glass in the morning. It could not hold her head over the sink as she retched bile and sorrow into it at 2am before collapsing into the bathtub and falling asleep to the beautifully accompanied acoustics of inconsolable tears. It could not stroke her hair or touch her face or kiss her lips or calm her soul and most awfully, most painfully of all, despite how much she worshipped at its altar… it would never stand in the bedroom doorway in nothing but a cotton t-shirt with its pink hair tumbling freely around its face, a coy, shyly adoring smile on its plump lips, bitten charmingly at the corner, and say,

“…I love you, Cheryl.”

And she’d stood in her kitchen, a deep breath rasping from her lungs as she gripped the countertop and hunched her back, letting the pain ride through her chest, the first time in months that she’d allowed herself to _feel_ … and she’d decided.

Something was missing.

And it wasn’t a 1953 oak-aged Cabernet Sauvignon and its warming anaesthetic nepenthe.

She missed _connection_.

She glanced back at the name on the envelope flowing cursively in blue ink.

She could get it. What she missed, she could have it again. Albeit from a stranger.

And she wouldn’t have to sage her apartment or cut her fucking hair or open her _heart_ and feel all that hellish, monstrous **_pain_.**

_If only for a night._

She’d spied the bottle, memories of clinking glass beneath her childhood bedroom floorboards and brandy soaked insults spat caustically over caviar toast at breakfast and the sounds of drunken, _agonising_ wailing echoing through Thistlehouse in the dead of night drowned out intermittently by a pause to take a **_drink_**.

She’d shuddered.

**_Don’t end up like your mother, Cheryl._ **

**_A bitter, lonely drunk._ **

The bottle had remained unopened on the side.

——-

And so she’d found herself here. Downtown. The backstreets. Red lights adorning murky windows, littered with greasy fingerprints from eager onlookers.

She didn’t belong here.

It was so seedy.

So licentious and unctuous and, almost, oddly _unfaithful_.

She shook her head.

She didn’t want to seem desperate.

But dammit it all if drinking alone each night and pickling your liver to forget a girl _wasn’t_ desperate then she didn’t know what was.

She glanced up at the sign above her as it buzzed and flickered, the name from the envelope flashing back at her, this time piped fluorescently into a purple argon bulb.

**‘The Viper Lounge’**

She took a deep breath in through her nose.

Discreet. She’d been assured.

She glanced at the window, pitch black save for the words ‘GIRLS, GIRLS, GIRLS’ blinking rhythmically out at her.

She caught sight of her reflection as its dim red glow illuminated the glass from behind which it sat and she stood up straight, flipping her hair over one shoulder.

_Don’t end up like your mother, Cheryl._

**_If only for a night._ **

She steadied her breathing and pushed the flat of her hand against the door handle, her heart pounding in her ears as it creaked entrance to her, and made her way carefully down the staircase, squinting her eyes in the shadowy dullness of the shaded red bulbs lined sparingly along the walls.

She took another calming breath as she reached the bottom, the distant cranking of slow thudding music becoming clearer to her, a spicy perfumed incense adding to the haze.

“Pissed off wives and girlfriends stay at the door, honey. Gotta wait for him to come out and then you can take your mess outside.”

She turned towards the voice, watching as a scantily clad woman behind a small cabin desk waved dismissively in her direction.

Cheryl pressed her lips together, defensive, and found her voice.

“Fortunately, I am not burdened with the affliction of a _husband_ or _boyfriend_. I’m not here for that.”

She strutted closer, the clicking of her heels attracting a glance from the woman.

Cheryl watched, the woman’s eyes flashing as she seemingly registered their expense.

“Well, we’re not looking for any new girls at the moment so…” She chewed neatly on a morsel of chewing gum behind black coated lips, Cheryl noticed, stepping up from her chair to bang her fist against the door of an adjacent room.

“Candy! 5 more minutes in there, let’s hustle!” she barked, returning to her seat without a second glance at Cheryl.

Cheryl clenched her jaw, stepping up to the desk.

“I’m not looking to _work_ here.” She spat, alarmed by the very accusation and glancing behind her anxiously as she prepared herself to speak her intentions, “…I’m here to use your services. As a _client_. It was recommended to me by a friend and…” She stuck out her jaw, raising her eyebrows as she attempted desperately to disguise her discomfort behind her cold façade, “…I suggest you show a little respect to paying _customers,_ especially one who can pay as handsomely as I and _especially_ if you’d like a goddamn tip.”

She waited, the smoke of an abandoned cigarette, propped neatly against the side of an ash tray on the desk, wafting ominously around her like graveyard fog.

The woman looked up at her slowly, trailing her eyes over Cheryl with a seasoned deductibility, and licked her lips.

“Sweetheart…” She said calmly, the intention of her tone cutting a chill through the humid air and sending a rush of panic through Cheryl’s chest, “You may have money… and I may not wear designer shit. Or speak fancy. And I may dance to pay my rent. Just like all the other women who work here. Who work _hard_. But look around,” She glanced to the side before cutting her eyes back to Cheryl and dropping her voice to a whisper, “… seems like we’re _all_ in the same place… so you wanna talk to me like that again, about _respect?_ I’ll have you out on your ass and your face plastered all over every bar in this town and you won’t get anywhere near these ladies.” She cocked her head, barely at all, but enough to shift her gaze at Cheryl like a blade to her throat, “I **know** what it’s like to be disrespected. We get _all_ kinds-a folks in this place, including a lotta asshole men. So if they want a good time, they gotta play by the rules. It doesn’t matter what services we may charge for, or how much money you got to pay for them, _we_ deserve **respect.** And you may think the same rules don’t apply to you, because you’re _rich_ … and pretty… and a **_woman_** , but that shit doesn’t fly down here, baby. We run this shit. So either treat me like a human being or get the _fuck_ out.”

Cheryl swallowed, gripping her shaking hand in her coat pocket.

_Face plastered all over every bar._

Fuck.

Her heart pounded faster, blood rushing to her ears and her tongue drying rapidly in her mouth as she wished to douse it with the familiar tang of red wine and sink into her pit of numb sedation.

**_Don’t end up like your mother, Cheryl._ **

She nodded tersely and tried to regain some semblance of the upper hand that had been sharply torn from her, sucking her teeth and rolling her eyes as she ran a hand through her hair.

“Believe me, I respect what you do. It wasn’t my intention for you to misunderstand that.”

She watched the woman smirk, looking her up and down slowly.

“I gotta say I was wondering why a chick wearing _those_ shoes would be looking to work here.” She sat back on her stool, clicking her pen, “Alright, Red. Let’s try again. What do you want?”

Cheryl opened her mouth, freezing.

What _did_ she want?

_To not feel **empty**_.

She shuffled her shoulders beneath her coat and examined the battered wood of the desk; a small square of paper – taped dirtily to the chipped paint beneath and peeling at the edges – caught her eye.

_‘Half price full nudes on Wednesdays! Noon til 2pm!’_

Jesus.

She swallowed.

“Well, what do you offer? I just … need it to be discreet. Completely and utterly.”

The woman rolled her eyes.

“Believe me, even the CIA wouldn’t be able to find out.” She murmured, popping her gum. “So we offer private dances; individual or group, up to you how many girls you want. That’s standard fee per girl, plus entrance, plus tax, plus drinks and tips.” She ticked off the options on her fingers with the end of her pen, “or… if you’re willing to spend a little more… we throw in certain extras. ‘Happy ending’ type stuff. Depending how freaky you wanna get determines the price. But that’s up to you.” She shrugged, scratching absentmindedly at her forearm. “Usually we’d ask for your preferred type but it’s gonna be a little tighter for you, depending on what you want, because there’s only a few who’ll do girls. Only two of those are in tonight. And one of them is manning this desk.”

She winked.

Good _Lord_.

Cheryl shook her head, rolling her neck uncomfortably as the information began to overwhelm her.

“You don’t have any facility to just… talk? Or…”

“Or what? All you wanna do is **_talk_**?”

Cheryl inhaled sharply.

This was too much. She shouldn’t be here. She should be home, passed out on the rug in her living room and floating unconsciously through memories of pressing open mouthed kisses to a tanned neck.

“No. God, No of course it’s not all I want. I don’t _know,_ I…” She ran her hand through her hair, her loud mind almost getting the better of her.

_You’re empty._

_You’re fucking empty._

**_You’ll never love again, Cheryl, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a hooker bounce on your lap to take your mind off it…_ **

“-Listen if you want a hug and some good conversation you oughta try dating, babe…”

_No you’re not **ready**. _

_Connection…_

“…take a pretty girl out for a **drink** …”

_If only for a night…_

“…this isn’t the place for-”

_A **drink…**_

“-a dance.” Cheryl finally snapped, silencing her thoughts back to the present, “Put me down for a dance. Just the one girl. No extras.”

The woman nodded, chuckling to herself as she scribbled a note. ****

“Just _talk.”_ She laughed, “That’s a good one.” She shook her head, “Name?”

Cheryl cleared her throat.

“…Betty.”

She was rewarded with a disbelieving look.

“You got a surname, _Betty_?”

“Not that you need to know.”

“Ok, _whatever._ Rules: 1.Consent is never implied; do not touch the girls unless given explicit permission. 2. Use of protection is non-negotiable. 3. No freebies; you ask for it, you pay for it. So, pay up front to your girl when you finish. Cash or card?”

“ _Cash._ ”

“And you got enough notes so you can tip her?”

Cheryl placed her hand on her bag, nodding her head.

“Oh, plenty.”

“You want coke?”

Cheryl frowned.

“Pardon?”

The woman rolled her eyes, switching her gum to the other side of her mouth as she regarded Cheryl with idiocy.

“What are you a narc? _Cocaine_. Do you want fucking blow brought to your table? Or Jangle?”

Cheryl’s eyebrows twitched, recognition ticking behind them.

“Oh. No.”

The woman shrugged a shoulder.

“Alright, we just always ask the rich ones.” She leaned back in her seat, dropping her pen and staring her gaze to Cheryl’s, “So… you’ll have the company of Kitty tonight. She’s a popular favourite around here so count yourself lucky. Room 6 over there behind you. Get comfortable and she’ll be in when she’s ready.” She winked, “Have fun.”

——-

Cheryl shifted on the velour of the couch, trying valiantly not to inspect the stains too closely.

God, maybe this was a mistake.

Perhaps she should’ve gone privately. Through an agency. Had them send someone to her home.

She crossed one leg over the other, the sole of her heel sticking to the linoleum beneath as she lifted it.

No, that would’ve been no good.

They’d have wanted names and addresses and background checks. Credit card details and photographic identification and her information stored on a database for evermore.

No, _this_ was for the best. Anonymous, swift, paid for in cash.

Just a quick dance, some _connection_ , and she’d be gone. No trail.

She pressed her palms to the flat of her skirt across her thighs and found that they were sweating.

She wiped them hurriedly.

She was sure they were making her wait on purpose.

She couldn’t _stand_ it.

Everything was too sensory. Too bombarding. The heat and the low light and the dull music and the fucking _smell_ of stale beer and the textures of the tasteless decoration; heavy curtains and glitter coated floors and sporadic reflections of coloured lights bouncing antagonistically from the stripper pole looming in front of her.

She closed her eyes, a frown cracking slowly at the skin of her brow.

It’d been months since she’d be so _aware_ at this time of the evening. So conscious. She was usually out of it by now, and willingly so.

**Gratefully** so.

She took a deep breath in through her nose.

_You can see it there, Cheryl… can’t you?_

She pressed her back into the seat, the air from her lungs shaking through her nose.

_That drink you left… uncorked… on the side… chilled and pretty._

Her heartbeat began to pitch within her chest.

_There are 750 millilitres per standardised capacity measurement in a regular sized bottle of wine._

She swallowed.

_Accounting for spillage, cork absorption and molecular adhesion to the glass, an approximate 0.67 millilitres can be subtracted from overall volume, per bottle consumed._

The hum of the room’s modest bar refrigerator kicked into life to her right.

God _why_ were they making her **_wait_**?

_And what would you be by now, Cheryl? 2 down? Maybe 3?_

_3 deep, red, oxidised, time-dissolving bottles down. And what would that be, Cheryl? C’mon you were top of Riverdale High for Math…_

She clenched her back teeth, the humming growing louder in her ears.

“2,243.97millilitres.” She whispered.

_That’s **right**. See how clever you are when you’re not **wasted?**_

She gripped her skirt in her hands as her stomach began to growl.

**Empty _._**

_2,243.97 millilitres of relief…. of freedom… of magical, medicinal tonic that can send you to sleep and block out the pain and lay you down gently as your eyes flutter closed… press a kiss to your cheek and take the pillow from behind your head slowly to delve deep, deep into your mind and find those awful, **agonising** memories and **smother them with it.** Hold them down and stifle their screams and silence your thoughts for just a few sacred hours, Cheryl…. To help you forget what you **lost** …_

She wiped hurriedly at her face as the first few tears fell sparsely against her cheeks with shaking hands.

_And you want it, Cheryl. Don’t you? You want every last drop…_

**_Just like your mother, Cheryl._ **

Her eyes shot open, honing in on the deafening electrical drone of the refrigerator. She flicked her frantic gaze over the frosted window of its door, the grotty graffiti scattering of fingerprints around its edges not even enough to deter her as she longed to reach in and grab the nearest drink. Anything; didn’t have to be wine. Just reach in and take it and finish it and start on another.

She closed her eyes again, shaking her head.

_Help you forget her skin…_

The music of the room halted, a new track beginning to play, louder this time, as the beat ticked into inception slowly.

_Forget her hair…_

The air prickled around her.

_Forget the way she **loved** you…_

A door creaked open behind and the sound of high heels stepping densely across the floor thudded in time with the song.

_Forget that beautiful voice of hers…_

“Well, well, well…”

Cheryl gripped her hands tighter.

“S’been a while since I’ve had a lady in here…”

_…that beautiful voice of hers…_

No.

“…you ready for the night of your life?…”

_That voice of hers…_

Cheryl’s ears pricked, the skin of her back crawling against her shirt.

It couldn’t.

_Your ears are playing tricks, Cheryl… you want her so bad you’re imagining it…_

**_You should’ve had that drink._ **

“…I’ll take care of you…”

_That voice of **hers**._

Cheryl’s blood halted icily in her veins.

She knew that voice.

She’d know it anywhere.

She imagined it whispering into her ear each night as she blacked out on the floor.

No it **_couldn’t_** be.

She snapped her eyes open, her neck resisting the turn of her head for just a second more before she moved to look behind her, fists tight and jaw clenched and…

A girl.

Small in stature.

Hair _tumbling freely around her face._

Tanned skin and plump lips, _bitten charmingly at the corner._

But no cotton t-shirt this time.

No bedroom doorway on which to lean.

And no, ‘ _I love you, Cheryl….’_

Cheryl’s throat constricted, vomit threatening at its base.

**_Empty._ **

**_————-_ **

“Cheryl, _please_ this is **my** anniversary gift to **you** , can you just let me do it how I planned?”

“If it’s _my_ gift why can’t I do what I **want,** Toni?”

“Oh Cher, come on!”

“But I want to **touch**.”

“And you can, babe, but you gotta enjoy the show first.”

“TT…”

“Cheryl, is this not the reason you **bought** me this damn lingerie in the first place?”

“Yes it was, TT, but I intended to take it off you at some poi-.”

A slim, tanned finger had pressed to Cheryl’s lips with an intentional softness, bringing the path of her words to a cushioned stop.

She’d watched as Toni had removed it slowly, brushing the pad of it across her mouth to slip her hand into red hair.

“Cheryl…” She’d whispered, holding her little hand lightly to the back of Cheryl’s head, fingers massaging slow circles to the scalp as she’d steadied their gazes together.

_Beautiful._

Cheryl had been enchanted, watching in enamoured silence as Toni’s breath puffed against her lips.

“…I would like to do something nice for you. For our anniversary. Because I _love_ you.”

The little mole on her lip had morphed gently sideways as she’d smiled a crooked grin, and Cheryl had stared at it with a clench in her chest that rid the air from her lungs and the agony from her soul.

“I love you, too.” She had echoed breathily, almost reflexively, feeling the fingers of Toni’s free hand ghost lightly down her arm to take gentle hold of her wrist.

Toni’s finger’s had shifted in her hair, a thumb stroking at her cheek.

“So please, just be patient… and let me do it, Cher.”

She had leaned in, bare lips pressing perfectly to Cheryl’s and a blanketed, encompassing peace had settled over pale skin that had relaxed her mind to the point of sheer bright-white vacancy.

Heaven.

_Dear **God** what her love does to you…_

Cheryl had felt Toni pull away; watching as she’d tapped at her phone to start the music and flipped her pink hair over her shoulder.

“Alright, ladies and gentlemen…” Toni had purred, “sitting comfortably?”

Cheryl had bitten her lip, shifting on the stiffness of the dining chair beneath her, dragged into the living room by Toni in secret before dinner, and nodded.

“Get ready for the lap dance of your life, Cheryl Blossom. You’d better tip me well…”

————-

“…TT?”

Cheryl felt the bile rising in her throat where words could not.

It couldn’t be.

She couldn’t be.

_Her_ Toni.

**_She’s not your Toni anymore._ **

**_She hasn’t been for so long…_ **

Her heart clenched along with her stomach and she faltered for a moment, her hand slipping on the sleek upholstery of the couch as she craned her neck to look at her.

There was no mistaking it.

Toni.

Little Toni Topaz.

The one woman she’d ever loved, and one of the very few people who had ever loved _her,_ was stood a mere two meters from her.

**_God, you need a drink._ **

She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since the break up.

Not even so much as a whisper through the grapevine.

Just gone. Dead end. Bereaved.

_A **drink.**_

The serendipity nearly took her to her knees.

Cheryl draped her eyes over her as she remained frozen to the spot, same pretty face but laden with makeup and hair now pink only on the ends; and the same lithe little body, slimmer now and clad in a pitifully small lace bikini, her skin shimmering under the lights; and same soulful, beautiful, warm, deep, forgiving eyes now pooled with unshed tears.

The recognition in Toni’s face had revealed itself to Cheryl immediately and she saw the panic, the pain, the shock and the hurt and the desire to flee as it flitted sequentially over her features until finally it rested uncomfortably on disbelieving humiliation.

“Cheryl…?”

Cheryl watched her lip tremble, a reddening creeping into her cheeks.

_You **should’ve**. Had. That fucking. **Drink.**_

“Toni…. Kitten, I… scarcely can believe it’s you.”

The words sparked a reaction in Toni that Cheryl knew well, her eyes widening and her nostrils flaring and her head shaking desperately side to side as she turned on her towering stripper heels to run away.

“Fuck, I can’t… this is… what the fuck, I just can’t…”

She was ashamed.

Cheryl heard the tremor in Toni’s words and she stood to her feet at once, calling out as Toni began to retreat hastily to the door.

She couldn’t lose this opportunity. Not again. Not after so long.

“TT, please!”

“I can’t do this-”

“Toni, it’s been more than a fucking _year_...” The sadness in her words had not been intentional but it filled the air around them like the scented smoke of the room that misted at their ankles, stopping Toni in her tracks. “… ** _Please_**.”

Toni’s body heaved, her shoulders tensing with conflicted mortification, and Cheryl watched as she ran her fingers through her hair.

The refrigerator hummed in Cheryl’s ears.

A little hand reached up to grasp the door frame, the knuckles whitening with pressure as Toni dipped her head, finally relaxing its grip as she shook a sigh from her lungs.

Cheryl waited, a breath caught in her throat.

Finally, with a heaved, reluctant slowness, Toni turned to look at her, a thick black line of melted mascara dripping a sombre path down her cheek.

Cheryl watched her swallow.

“Jesus Christ, Cheryl Blossom.” She whispered, sniffing as she wiped at her face with the back of her hand, “of all the fucking whore-houses in this city and you goddamn chose this one.”


	2. The Jingle From The Jangle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi. Trigger warnings: drug use, drug abuse, descriptions of drug taking, some offensive language and some (barely) smut. 
> 
> Peace.

Jingle Jangle tasted good.

Cheryl had overheard it said once at a high-school party from the dry mouth of a pill-head jock. He’d been flying higher than the jet-stream, shirt off and body glistening with sweat, a vascular map of thick veins bulging from his neck and torso as he’d thrown back a pixy-stick full and whooped at his pack of Bulldogs from atop of Archie’s kitchen table like the animal he truly was.

“Oh how that Jingle Jangle tastes GOOD!”

Cheryl had watched him, fascinated. His dilated pupils and animated limbs showed no sense of abashment. Of restriction. Of deep kept secrets or dead brothers and dead, murderous fathers or drunk mothers dropping brandy glasses in the orangery from shaking hands.

He looked utterly, beautifully **free**.

So, sure... just to see if it really did _taste good_... why shouldn’t she try it?

And when Veronica had swept past her in the hallway later that night, a cunning smirk reminiscent of her devious father smudged across her mouth, and lifted a selection of candy striped stix in front of Cheryl’s face, fanning them out in her hands like a magician’s cards...

_And for her next trick, Cheryl..._

_...She’ll make all your insecurities disappear.._.

...Cheryl had had no hesitation in plucking one from her grasp and tossing it back with wild abandon.

She hadn’t known if perhaps it was an odd batch. Maybe homemade, perhaps diluted. But it had tasted of grit and salt and acid.

She’d grimaced, smacking her red lips.

Perhaps another would taste better.

It hadn’t.

Nor had the third. Or the fourth. And after months had flown by, counted not by calendar days but instead by the sequential tear, toss, swallow of that wonderful dust... she’d eventually lost count.

But she had still been determined to find one that _**tasted good**_.

She’d convinced herself it had had nothing to do with the energy it gave her. The way it had sped her already quick mind to 100% burnout. Or how it had pushed her passed exhaustion at Vixen’s practice so that tiredness seemed like but a myth of old to her now. Or how it had kept her focus on her schoolwork, studying late into the night and boosting her full throttle into the next early morning before the sun was up, sometimes foregoing sleep for days on end.

It had had nothing to do with its euphoric incline of endorphins that wracked through her veins as the first tingle of powder touched her tongue, and how it stamped out the voices in her head that she was loveless and alone and smothered the voice of her mother spouting similarly vile sentiments across the breakfast table and it how it took away the thoughts of girls’ lips and girls’ creamy thighs beneath Vixen’s skirts and girls’ cleavage in the locker room and their curves and faces and voices and pretty laughs and dainty hands and hair that smelled like peaches and felt like _silk_.

It had had **nothing** to do with that.

She’d thought nothing of discarding the paper tubes into an envelope under her bed and burning them in the fireplace in secret. And it had bothered her not that the supply was endlessly available, the football team had ample stock that they would shoot as pre-workout, off the books of course, and Reggie Mantle would leave a hollowed out Chemistry textbook filled with the stuff in her locker each Wednesday lunchtime for a fee that barely altered her bank balance.

It didn’t matter that her tongue had lain scarred and burnt like a battleground from the persistence of the harsh ingredients, cheeks and gums reddened with ulcers and her throat scorched with chemical burns. Or how in instances when her mouth had been too damaged to receive it, she’d opted to snort it through her nose. Hadn’t worried her the ease with which she’d tapped it carefully onto her compact mirror in her car before school or in the bathroom stall between lessons, chopped it into perfect lines with the edge of her American Express Centurion credit card and used the straw of the stick to sniff it all greedily _up_. Even the eventual nosebleeds hadn’t deterred her.

It didn’t matter that no one noticed, that it was Riverdale youth’s best kept secret. That _everyone was doing it_ , she had been certain, not just her... that she could **get away with it**. 

And it didn’t matter that it had made her feel powerful. It didn’t matter that it had made her feel untouchable, invincible, unstoppable. _Worth something_. It didn’t matter that she’d **_liked_** that.

None of that had mattered, she’d told herself.

She could stop anytime.

She didn’t need it. Didn’t even want it.

She certainly wasn’t addicted.

She was, simply, despite its lethal chemical compound of poisons that she’d never _truly_ been foolish enough to think would ever be sweet to the tongue... just determined to find one that _**tasted good**_.

———

Cheryl licked her lips, trying to ignore the conspicuous dryness of her tongue, as she flicked her eyes over the ink of one Toni’s thigh tattoos, the flashing of the coloured lights drawing Cheryl’s attention to her skin.

“There’s…” she pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to step around the couch to be closer, “…Hell, where do I even start?”

Her glassy eyes belied the small chuckle of her words but her attempt at light humour was not received gratefully by Toni who remained sheepish in her stance opposite, jaw set tight and arms crossed and eyes looking anywhere but Cheryl.

Cheryl felt her chest ache, some token of the pain at least feeling like relief.

“It’s been so long, ma Cherie.”

Toni’s arms dropped from their cradle and she sighed, sniffing, two hands wiping at the tears on her face now.

“No, I can’t. I really can’t-.”

She moved to turn away again, Cheryl’s lips opening to call her back as panic struck at her heart when suddenly Toni stopped, her head snapping back to the room.

Cheryl watched her eyes dart swiftly across the table, over the couch, worry shining out of them through the tears.

Cheryl frowned.

“TT, wh-”

“-Did they give you jangle?”

Toni’s words were firm, shaking with concern beneath her insistence.

Cheryl shook her head, confused.

“I don’t-”

“Jingle Jangle, Cheryl,” Toni interrupted forcefully, no time for fucking around according to her tone, “at the desk Peaches would’ve offered you jangle. Or coke. Did you take it? Have you done it, Cheryl? Is there any coming to this room right now?”

Ah.

Right.

**That**.

Cheryl’s.... history.

A little morsel of hope flickered into life in Cheryl’s chest.

_Toni still cared_.

“No.” She replied calmly, catching Toni’s eyes and shaking her head, “in all sincerity, TT. On Nana Rose’s grave. No.”

The name seemed to send a pang of hurt through Toni, her eyes softening briefly.

She swallowed, stepping closer, and Cheryl’s breath caught in her throat.

She surveyed Cheryl’s face carefully, taking her time, seemingly not _solely_ for the purposes of interrogation, and pressed her pretty lips together.

“Seriously, Cheryl. Are you telling the truth?”

Her voice was softer now.

_Her_ TT.

Cheryl flickered a smile across her lips.

“Yes, TT. I promise, I’m not high. I haven’t touched it. Not tonight, or even since...”

Toni looked away, glancing at the refrigerator.

Her eyebrow perked.

“And what about **that**?” She pointed to it, turning her gaze back to Cheryl, “have you had anything from that? Have you been drinking?”

Cheryl felt the cold sweat gather on her back.

God, a _drink_.

That would be blissful right now.

_She can’t know the truth, Cheryl. Not now. Not now you’ve got her back, it’ll drive her away._

... _just like before_...

“No.” Cheryl insisted, itching to reach out and touch her, “No, TT. I haven’t had anything from there. I haven’t had anything to drink at all.”

_Tonight, maybe, you fucking **liar**._

_Look what it does to you._

_**Lying again** so soon._

Cheryl watched as Toni deciphered no bullshit in her words and noticed her demeanour relax somewhat. She placed her little hands back over herself to clutch her arms, trying to cover as much of her shame as she could.

She sniffed, tucking some hair behind her ear.

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

Cheryl sensed no positivity from Toni’s words but the sound of her voice in person made her smile.

“Likewise, TT. I... didn’t even know you were still in the city it’s-” she noticed Toni’s skin breaking into goosebumps, her hands clutching tighter to her arms, “TT, would you like my coat? Please, take it, your body glitter will no doubt ruin the lining but you’re worth more than a vintage Dior-”

“Cheryl, **stop**.” Toni put her hands up, a sickly look on her face. “Look, I can’t stand here and waste time, and reminisce about shit. Time is money and it’ll come from _my_ pay cheque and I don’t... there’s consequences for failing to get money from a client, Cheryl, I’m gonna get in trouble and-”

Cheryl watched, her brow creasing.

Client?

_That’s all you are now, Cheryl_.

This was not the Toni she recognised.

The independent, free spirited, boss-bitch she loved would not balk and grow wide eyed at inconveniencing ‘The Man’.

Especially not for Cheryl.

“-TT...” The softness of her voice echoed out to Toni and she stopped her tirade, eyes wide. “TT, I’ll pay. Of course I’ll pay. I’ll pay for you all night if I have to, please... calm yourself.”

Toni’s brow clenched, fresh tears spilling.

“Why, Cheryl? So you can fucking sit here and debase me. Judge me. Judge how I’ve debased my fucking self? I can’t just sit here with you and talk, Cher. Apart from anything else it’s too goddamn painful but knowing you’re paying for the privilege? It’s sick. This is all so sick, it’s fucked up. What are you even doing here?”

Cheryl straightened her back, a defensive hardness settling on her features.

_You need a **drink**_.

She knew Toni was hurting, just as much as she.

And the time apart had no doubt been just as long and agonising as it had been for Cheryl, maybe even more so without the numbing respite of alcohol that Cheryl had been abusing.

Even resentment and anger were understandable.

She could see, **_feel_** the sheer shame and humiliation pouring from her.

But would she not at least sit with her? Talk with her? The accusations and sheer indignation of Toni’s words irritated her.

Just like old times.

How _dare_ she?

After all this time how dare she?

_You always said she’d never understand_.

She knew nothing of Cheryl’s life now.

She wasn’t even pleased to fucking **see** her.

“What am I doing here? Really, Toni. What am I doing here?” She began quietly, a biting tone chipping away at her softness, “I’m here for a fucking lap dance, Toni. Isn’t it obvious? That’s right, you caught me red headed, ok? I’m just another fucking loser who was lonely and hurting and wanted a human being to touch them. Another human being to look at them with desire and want and to share that feeling of intimacy with someone. Is that so unfathomable? I wanted a connection. I missed a connection.” _You need a drink_. “And even if that connection came in the form of an ass on my lap and a hand on some girl’s chest, I wanted to feel close to someone. And so that is my confession. That is the truth. I know it’s pathetic. I know that. Don’t think I took this decision on some sort of whim. But judge not lest ye be judged. Do you honestly feel as if you’re in an appropriate position to be so punitive about my life choices? Which does indeed beg the counter question, for why, pray tell, are YOU here?”

She finished strong, jaw jutting and lips pursed, wriggling to one side of her face.

Toni flared her nostrils.

Cheryl could see she was fighting to stay subdued. To use a soft voice and soft words and bow down to Cheryl’s pain. Just like she always had. It was a sight Cheryl knew well.

But then she shook her head, pink curls flowing lightly down her back and crushed her reservations in the ball of a tightly fisted hand.

“Why do you THINK I’m fucking here, Cheryl? You wanna humiliate me even more by making me _say_ it? That I’m a fucking **whore** for money? You want to say you told me so? You want that, Cher? You want me to admit how fucking _awful_ this feels?”

The tears were falling thick and fast and she paused to wipe at them quickly, her rhetorical questions sitting uncomfortably in the warm air.

“And I’m **_not_** judging you,” she scoffed, “I have **_never_** judged you, but since when have you ever had to _pay_ for sex, Cheryl? You’ve always had women willing to open their legs for you without even a ‘hello’ let alone a fucking fee. Why didn’t you go to a goddamn club or on a...”

The words halted themselves at Toni’s lips like vomit and Cheryl clenched her teeth together, knowing exactly what she hadn’t been able to say.

_God you should’ve had that drink._

_All this pain._

_Look at the **pain** she’s carrying._

“A _date_ , Toni? Why didn’t I try going on a date?” She saw each mention of the word cut at Toni like a whip and she softened her voice, swallowing, “for the same reason you can’t even bear to speak the words, TT. I’m simply not ready.”

Toni shut her eyes, tears falling once again from behind the closed lids. She pursed her lips, running her tongue along her teeth behind them.

“Please... Cheryl. I am begging you. This is _torture_ for me.”

Cheryl gasped softly, wiping at the corner of her own eyes with her knuckle.

“Toni. Earnestly, please do not feel ashamed. This is nothing to be ashamed of. I can’t say this was the way in which I’d ideally envisaged a reuniting of our paths but nonetheless it is the one we have been given. Let us not squander it. Please? Won’t you sit with me a while and just talk?”

———

Cheryl had swept her hair from her face, hands shaking and wet with rain as she’d rattled her way into the apartment.

She’d glanced at her phone, ears ringing loudly in her head.

3:25 am.

Shit.

She’d chewed frantically on the insides of her cheeks, stepping out of her heels and padding over to the kitchen in the dark as her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest.

The Jingle Jangle hadn’t tasted good again.

At least, the first round hadn’t. As for the 5th or 6th she couldn’t say.

The cocaine residue sitting on her gums hadn’t been delicious either.

After meeting Toni at Riverdale High, and sometime later living with her in Thistlehouse, she’d found the process of hiding her entanglement with jingle jangle decidedly more difficult. And as time had gone on, her anxious mind could no longer handle the pressures of disguising her penchant for the drug, which she claimed only to use _socially_ , and lying to the love of her life and thus she’d found herself wanting to stop.

She’d needed something to slow her down.

Calm her.

To soothe her racing mind.

Because life was **_good_** now.

And if the panic in her chest wouldn’t let her enjoy it, then she’d needed something to shut it up for good.

Just in the same way that her beloved TT did.

Something to replace the white noise buzz of stimulants and bring a clarity, a peaceful silence to her life in which she could clearly hear her Toni’s utterances of “I love you, Cheryl.”

She’d needed a change.

And so she’d found one.

**Xanax**.

It hadn’t tasted good either.

But dear god hadn’t it _felt_ good.

A simple trip to Dr Caligari with her cheque book, and a few well placed tears, saw a bountiful weekly prescription of the stuff fall, very timely, her way with almost immediate effect.

She’d disguised the week of stimulant withdrawal as a bout of the flu, tended to so dearly by her lovely, unsuspecting Toni, had filled an old multi-vitamin bottle with her new wonder pills and popped them down her throat, one by one, completely under the radar.

More and more each week.

Until the sun had shone a little brighter and the world had looked a little rosier and Sweetwater River’s lapping current had sounded pleasant to her ears instead of vicious and cold and suffocating.

And that had been that.

Two ‘vitamins’ on the hour, every waking hour. Sometimes three depending on her mood.

But, she had convinced herself, it was just to feel good, to settle down from her jingle jangle days.  


Not a crutch, or a replacement.   
_  
She could stop anytime she **wanted**._

She’d patted at the countertops of the kitchen desperately, eyes darting about in the dark as she’d searched for her pill bottle.

Occasionally, she’d still dabbled in the stimulant realm. Working in the art world meant networking and functions and exhibits and parties and everywhere, _everywhere,_ in all bombardment of senses, in every corner and every nook... she was stalked by her dear old friend **Jingle Jangle**.

Cocaine was just a chaser. An acquaintance if you will.

And anyway, _everyone was doing it_. She was doing it to fit in. For old time’s sake. The same way one would take a canapé from a passing plate whilst discussing the brutality of Weimar Republic abstractism, Cheryl would take a hit from a stranger in the bathroom and that was that.

No harm, no foul.

**Everyone** was doing it.

But, ordinarily, as she would stumble home after midnight, pupils wide and palms sweating and legs shaking under her dress, she’d take her nightly downer ‘vitamins’ and, come the morn, she’d awaken _human_ once more, with Toni sleeping soundly next to her and **none the wiser.**

Like clockwork.

Until _that_ night.

“Cheryl?”

The kitchen light had flickered on.

_Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck where was the fucking bottle fucking fuck._

_**Fuck**._

Cheryl had swallowed dryly, hands gripping the countertop as she had remained facing away.

“TT? Go back to bed.” She’d managed to shake from her chest.

She’d heard Toni hum from behind her.

“Nah, I’m good.” She’d croaked, voice tired from sleep, “I wanted to see you. You said you’d be home by 12:30. Thought I might catch you before I went to bed. You have a good night?”

Cheryl had felt the panic dripping down her temple with a bead of sweat.

_Fuck, she can’t see you like this_.

“What are you my security detail, TT? It ran late. Go back to bed, ma Cherie.”

“Hey, hey,” Toni had placated, the sound of her shuffling feet growing closer and a warm palm landing on the middle of Cheryl’s back. “I’m not here to bust you, babe. I heard you come in is all. And I’m awake now.” She’d begun to run her hand over the length of Cheryl’s spine, stopping at the top each time to caress her shoulders, “just thought since we’re both up... we could take off where we left things last night?”

Cheryl’s eyes had closed, a warmth dripping between her legs and she’d bit her lip, trying to restrain herself.

_Stop it. Stop it. Find that bottle and **go to sleep**._

_Tell her no_.

“No?” Toni had dropped her voice to but a moan and pressed her body into Cheryl’s side.

The curve of her breast had pushed warmly against her back and Cheryl’s carnality had taken control.

She’d turned, flipping Toni to face away from her and pressed her into the countertop with her hips tightly, her lips clamping to her neck.

“Holy shit.” Toni had chuckled, a groan creaking from her throat as Cheryl had shoved a hand inside her night shirt, palming roughly at her breast.

Cheryl had grunted, pushing Toni’s body forward and slipped her thumbs into her pyjamas, tugging them wantonly down her smooth legs and moaning at the sight of the newly exposed skin.

_God you feel fucking alive don’t you?_

“Fuck.” Toni had moaned, her back arching as Cheryl had pushed her fingers between tanned buttocks, running them down over her folds to rub roughly at her clit.

She’d shoved Toni’s nightshirt up her back, scratching at the skin with her nails.

“You like that, Kitten?” She’d cooed, breath heaving from her lungs and lifting her hand to her mouth to suck two fingers wet before plunging them deep into Toni, holding her torso down with the palm of the other.

_God don’t you **miss** feeling this good?_

She’d watched delightedly as Toni’s hands had scrambled at the marble countertop, a whimper bouncing from it as her lips parted.

Cheryl moved her hand hard, hooking her fingers upwards.

“Fuck! Feels so, uh fuck, wait...”

Toni had clamped a hand behind her, grabbing at Cheryl’s wrist.

_Feeling this powerful?_

Cheryl pushed on roughly.

“...babe, wait.”

God she felt so **fucking alive**.

Why had she ever stopped looking for that good tasting jangle?

She’d moved her fingers harder.

“Cher, stop.”

_God you miss this rush don’t you, Cheryl?_

“Babe.”

_Feeling fucking **invincible**_.

“Stop.”

_It suits you_.

Toni had batted her fingers away, pushing up against the hand on her back.

Cheryl had relented, wiping her wet fingers onto the skin of her forearm.

”Fuck.” Toni had muttered, steadying herself on her elbows as she caught her breath.

She leaned up slowly, gathering her long hair in her hand and fanning at her neck with the other.

Cheryl had itched to grab it.

“Holy shit, Cher. You gotta warm me up a little first if you’re gonna go like that.” Toni had laughed the words, climbing from the counter and stepping out of her pants, turning to Cheryl with a smirk.

“Jesus,” she’d panted, “...C’mere, I haven’t seen you all day. I wanna kiss yo-.”

Cheryl’s eyes had flicked between Toni’s, watching as her face fell.

“Are you ok, Cheryl?”

Fuck.

She’d taken Cheryl’s hand in her own, moving closer to survey her eyes.

“You’re shaking and sweating.”

Fucking fuck.

“It’s just the rain.”

“Cheryl, your pupils are fucking huge. Are-”

You’re **fucked**.

Toni had stopped, her face transforming from a look of concern to one of frustrated disbelief.

“Cheryl, are you fucking high? Are you serious? Are you fucking high right now?”

Cheryl had not taken kindly to the accusation, despite the truth it held.

How _dare_ she?

She didn’t **understand**.

“No, TT. Of course no-”

“Cheryl, please don’t lie to me.”

Cheryl had paused, her mind racing.

She rolled her dry tongue in her mouth and clenched her fingers on each hand.

“Toni, _everyone’s_ doing it.”

“Oh Jesus **Christ** , Cheryl!”

Two little hands had flown up to cover Toni’s face, moving to grip at her pink hair.

“What is it? What have you taken?”

Cheryl rolled her eyes, her anger growing.

“Just a few shots of Jingle Jangle and some cocaine. Nothing heavy.”

Toni’s mouth had dropped open in disbelief.

”Nothing heavy? Cheryl?! I thought you said you were done with jangle back in high-school.” A red flush had begun to patch across Toni’s chest and Cheryl had watched it spread as her words grew more concerned, “Cheryl, I told you. I know what goes _into_ this stuff. I’ve seen it being _made_. It’s fucking **lethal**. It’s literally like a dirtier form of crack. And that’s even when it’s cut properly. If there’s other shit in this, fucking rat poison or rock salt or I don’t fucking _know_ what it could **_kill_** you, Cheryl. And to mix it with coke? Babe, we are talking **_overdose_**.”

Cheryl had fought the urge to roll her eyes. She knew what she was doing. She’d been doing this for years. She was practically a qualified chemist in all but paper certificate.

She’d blinked, clenching her jaw.

“Toni, it’s _normal_. In the circles in which I operate for work, it’s everywhere. It’s social. It’s just a one off kind of thing. Stop getting your panties in a goddamn twist about it.”

_Where_ was that fucking vitamin bottle?

“Cheryl, you can’t be around it like that, it’s not _healthy_. Believe me I have seen so many people fall victim to this kind of normalisation, it’s _not ok._ ”

Toni’s attempt at a softer tone had done nothing to stem Cheryl’s temper.

“ _Your_ kind of people, the people you _saw_ , they’re different to me. They were little street urchins with nothing else in their lives who turned to drugs to take them away from their Dickensian little existence, Toni. That is **_not_** what’s going to happen to me. I still function, I still work, I still operate normally and take care of you-”

“Excuse me, _take care_ of me?”

Toni’s tone had been indignant and it sent a bolt of rage through Cheryl’s head as she had slapped her fist onto the marble countertop next to her with a bellowing thud, puffing air through her nose tensely.

“You are **not** the boss of me, Toni Topaz. I’m a fucking grown up, I pay the bills, I control my own life. Now _hush_ your preachy, hypocritical sermon at once and understand that I’m not some crackhead dope fiend speed freak. Stop acting like my _mother_.”

Toni shook her head, a glare squinting her eyes.

“ **Don’t** raise your voice at me, Cheryl. And **don’t** be such a fucking snob about the people I grew up with. If _anyone’s_ acting like your mother, it’s **_you_**.”

Cheryl had gasped, her blood raging through her veins.

She’d watched as Toni had stepped back in her pyjamas, pulling them up her legs.

“I’m trying to help you, Cheryl. Class A drugs made in dirty labs in people’s basements aren’t something you can just walk away from when you find yourself in too deep. I don’t wanna see you hurt, or worse. This is risky shit.”

She’d wiped at a tear on cheek quickly, clearly frustrated at herself for getting emotional.

“I have lost too many good people to this filth, Cheryl.”

Cheryl had thrown her head back with a frustrated groan, itching to punch the counter again.

“I’m not going to **_die_** , Toni. This is so _ridiculous_ , you’re being so hideously dramatic.”

_She doesn’t understand._

_She never will._

_You **don’t** have a **problem**_.

“It doesn’t **start** with overdoses in nightclub bathrooms, Cher. It starts as fun, recreational. And then you want more and more and you find yourself surrounded by people and places who can get you more and more and eventually you cant feel _human_ without it and so you take more and more and **more** and then one day, you take too much of an ounce that’s laced with arsenic or heroin or antifreeze and it’s fucking _lights out_. How many times do I have to tell you, _I have seen it happen._ ”

Cheryl had sucked in a deep breath, shaking her head.

“This has absolutely been blown out of proportion, it’s preposterous. **You** are being _preposterous_. You’re trying to control what I do when I’m not with you.”

_Now, Now, Cheryl._

**_Don’t end up like your mother..._ **

Toni had physically recoiled, her face blank.

“Are you being _serious_ right now, Cheryl?”

_Jesus Christ if she’d just shut up and let you fuck her she wouldn’t be feeling like this._

_It’s **her** own fault for getting involved_.

“I think you’re jealous you’re not at these parties and you want to stop me enjoying them.”

Toni’s tears had turned from those of worry to those of hurt in the blink of an eye and Cheryl almost wished she could take the words back.

_Almost_.

“I want to stop you getting into some shit that you’re not equipped _to get out of_ , Cheryl. And I want to stop you from getting arrested and sent to fucking _jail_ , you know how many years you get for possession of a Class A drug, Cheryl?”

Cheryl had scoffed, her buzz starting to dip and her endorphins fizzling to a dull halt as her vicious side took over.

If she could just get to that damn vitamin bottle she wouldn’t be like this.

“Maybe the kind of people you used to associate with, TT. Me and _my kind_ , we bribe the judge. Now if you’re quite finished with this after-school special, I’m going to bed.”

She’d turned around, pushing a pepper shaker onto the ground to let it smash, and stormed out in a flurry of outrage, Toni’s voice sounding out from behind her.

“It’s about time you **learn to listen** , Cheryl!”

———

Cheryl draped her eyes over Toni’s tear streaked face.

“So, what do you say, TT?”

She lifted her arm, slowly, her palm facing upward in open invitation and offered her hand, taking a step towards her.

Toni sighed.

Cheryl could see the debate taking place in her head as she stared at Cheryl’s hand.

A hand she’d held countless times before, she now looked at it like it might burn her.

“Please?”

She watched as Toni closed her eyes, a sickened look to her face and she nodded, clasping her warm little fingers around Cheryl’s and squeezing it with tight affection.

A hand that didn’t want to let go.

Cheryl rubbed her thumb gently across the skin, a slowly breath releasing from her chest as she smiled.

God how it felt _good_ to have that hand in hers once more.

_Calms your anxious mind_.

She stepped closer again, cupping her other hand to Toni’s cheek and felt her flinch, evidently not the recipient of a gentle touch for some time.

Cheryl’s heart ached.

“There,” she whispered, catching the path of a tear with her thumb and wiping it away, “it’s not so bad is it?”

Cheryl felt the weight of Toni’s face lean into her hand and she dipped her head to press a soft, slow kiss to her forehead, letting the familiar smell of her hair flutter her eyes shut.

Toni gripped her hand tighter.

“Now, TT. Shall we take a seat and talk a while? I’m so desperate to hear how you’ve been. I’m sure you have much to say...”

She pulled back to see Toni’s eyes had opened and smiled at her, curling some hair behind her ear, “...It’s about time I _learned to listen_.”


	3. Karma: The Tale of Billy Barker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi there. trigger warnings: mentions of suicide. mentions/descriptions of overdose. mentions of child death. mentions of addiction and substance abuse. mentions of violence. if you can stomach it, enjoy. let me know what you think.
> 
> stay safe,  
> peace x

A senator had killed themselves in DC.

The article had flashed up on Cheryl’s phone screen as she’d been waiting for her coffee, the collective bustle of shock around her blocked out by both the sound of the espresso machine and her cynical disinterest.

She’d clicked on it anyway, ever the sucker for a story of someone else’s demise, and she’d browsed the piece with a dismissive air of untouchability on her journey home.

_‘…the US Congress vernacular created murmurings of a ‘witch-hunt’ so, as the pitchforks of FBI investigation were sharpened, the proverbial torches shone a light upon the years of dishonest activity for which Senator Clarkson was damningly responsible. It seems as if the past deceitful apologies had all been part of the plan...’_

She had read the words, uninvested; pulling the apartment keys from her purse and pushing a strand of red hair behind her ear as she’d scrolled through it with her thumb, noting it was almost time for her hourly fix.

_‘…should others in power be paying attention?...’_

Cheryl should’ve been paying attention.

_‘…perhaps the stake of exposing those at ‘the top’ for their secrets is being set alight…’_

And taken it for the omen that it was.

She’d scoffed, rolling her eyes as she had kicked the door closed with her stiletto heel and clicked her way into the kitchen, the sight of Toni’s pink hair, illuminated by the afternoon sun flooding in through the window, twitching a smile to her lips.

“Cou-cou, mon tresor.”

She’d watched as Toni had stirred her tea, the steam misting heavenward to collect in drops on the cabinet door above, her back remaining turned away from her.

She’d taken a small breath, her spoon clinking idly against her cup.

“Hi, Cher.”

Cheryl had approached her slowly, shrugging her bag from her shoulder and dumping it on the counter, draping her eyes up and down over the back of her small figure as she’d reached out to run her fingers through the long curtain of Toni’s hair.

She’d smiled, pulling it gently to the side and leaned down, using the height of her heels to reach over and press a slow kiss to Toni’s cheek.

_Time for a fix…_

She’d pulled back, slapping her hand to Toni’s backside playfully before moving to take a seat at the counter.

“Did you hear about the senator in DC?”

Toni had nodded, her spoon slowing to a stop.

“I did.” She’d paused, turning to look at Cheryl, “Crazy how people’s secrets come out to bite them in the ass, huh?”

Again, Cheryl had ignored the message the universe had sent to scream its prophetic warning in her face.

“Honestly, the _drama_ of it is all that’s worth the attention. White collar crime is so inherent to the system that it’s barely worth the coverage but hanging yourself with a Versace belt from the chandelier in the master bedroom of your family home? Lord, it’s so _Hollywood._ ”

Toni’s spoon had clattered to the counter.

“ _Cheryl_. That is a **person** you are talking about. His _son_ found him. Have some respect.”

Cheryl had had the sense to look ashamed, pressing her lips together as she’d shifted her weight on her forearms, watching Toni rub a hand to her chest and clear her throat.

“Lemon and ginger tea and a frog in your throat? Are you getting sick, my little love?”

She’d pouted as Toni had shrugged a shoulder, cupping her hands around her drink.

“I’m not sure. I don’t feel bad-”

“-let me draw you a warm bath, some lavender oil and a head massage should soothe you.”

Cheryl had been almost to her feet when Toni’s words had stopped her.

“No. No, really, babe, that’s sweet of you but, I just took a bunch of your vitamins, so hopefully that’ll catch it before it gets worse.”

Cheryl’s blood had run still in her veins.

What.

“My _vitamins_?”

She’d looked up to see Toni push her ‘vitamin’ bottle of secret Xanax pills along the counter, one hand still clutched to her steaming cup as she raised it to her lips.

She was watching Cheryl carefully.

“Yeah. These ones. Knocked ‘em back with some whiskey. Hot toddy to kill the bugs, you know?”

Dear God.

She’d unknowingly thrown back prescription meds with alcohol.

It would only be a matter of time before it began to take action and her body started to reject it.

 _What have you **done**_ **,** _Cheryl?_

Cheryl had let out a whisper of a breath, flicking her eyes to the bottle.

“How many?”

Toni had reclined against the counter.

“Well, Dr Caligari said you can’t _overdose…”_ Sweat had begun to pool at Cheryl’s brow, her heart thumping in her ears at visions of Toni laid on the kitchen floor, frothing at the mouth with her eyes rolling back and convulsing against the tiles, “…on vitamin C, if your body doesn’t need it it just pisses it out so-”

“Toni, how MANY?”

The urgency with which she’d barked the words had caused Toni to pause.

She’d stood up straight, looking Cheryl up and down.

“All of them. Sorry. I didn’t think you’d mind. I’ll pick you up another bottle at the pharmacy; I know how precious they are to you.”

_All of them._

**_You’ve killed her._ **

Cheryl had felt herself begin to hyperventilate and she’d suppressed it with a gulp of breath, her hand shaking as she clutched it to her chest.

“All of them?”

Tears had pricked at her eyes as she’d shot to her feet, pacing across to Toni to grab her wrist, pressing two fingers to her pulse.

“TT, listen to me. We need to get you to a hospital. I’m going to call 911. Go to the bathroom and try to make yourself vomit.”

Toni had frowned, pulling her hand away.

“Why? Cheryl, you can’t die from too many multivitamins, at worst I’ll get diarrhoea, calm down.”

_Tell her. You need to tell her._

Cheryl had hesitated, her lip trembling as panic had risen in her stomach.

 _She’ll **die**_ **.**

Toni had stared at her, hard.

“ _Why_ , Cheryl? Tell me what’s the problem.”

**_She’ll die._ **

“They’re not vitamins! Ok?! They were fucking Xanax pills, Toni. And you’ve swallowed probably close to a hundred in a short amount of time with _alcohol_. We need to get you to a hospital and get your stomach pumped now _please_ stick your fingers down your throat whilst I call you an ambulance.”

She’d let out a sob, muttering prayers of regret and disbelief as she glanced around frantically for her phone, the room clouded by her tears.

_Dear God, Cheryl._

**_‘… exposing those at ‘the top’ for their secrets…’_ **

_You’ve killed the love of your life._

She needed a fix.

“I know.”

Toni’s words had been so hollow and dead that they had caused Cheryl’s hand to cease its dialling, buoying into the silence between them like a rotten, bloated corpse.

She’d turned to look at her, swollen eyes frowning.

“What?”

Toni’s eyes, however, had held a paradoxical light. A deep, disappointed sadness had clouded her face and her eyes had stared dully and tired, but, behind that, a little flame in the window had flickered.

 _Anger_.

Fuck.

“I know… that they’re Xanax. I haven’t taken them. I just wanted you to admit it.” She’d placed her cup on the counter, pressing her lips together and sighing out of her nose. “So, when I woke up this morning, I felt a little tickle in my throat. Work is super intense right now and with the busy season coming up I knew I couldn’t afford to get sick and so I called Dr Caligari.” She’d crossed her arms over her chest glancing dejectedly at the empty vitamin bottle. “He told me to stay warm and take some _vitamins_. I knew you had some, you pop ‘em ten times a fucking day and you’re _never_ sick, so I thought I’d try the same.”

Cheryl had felt the nature of her dread shift as it seated itself heavily upon her chest.

“Wait. You tricked me? You made me panic thinking you were going to overdose and it was a _trick?”_

Toni rolled her eyes.

“How about you _imagine_ **my** panic, Cheryl, when I tipped one of those vitamins out and found it was a Xanax. That the whole _bottle_ was fucking Xanax.”

Cheryl swallowed, shaking her head.

“A dirty _trick_. I thought you were going to _die_. All for **this** little show, Toni?”

Toni tilted her head, indignation painted on her pursed lips.

“Excuse me, Cheryl? Little show? You’re _hoarding_ Xanax in a fucking vitamin bottle-”

“-you _know_ I take Xanax, Toni.” Cheryl had interrupted, defensive rage giving power to her voice, “You _know_ I have crippling anxiety, which might I add you have _not_ helped with this, I have a prescription from Dr Caligari. You **know** all of this.”

She could feel her control slipping.

Her mind wandering to a dark place.

She needed a fix.

Toni had dropped her hands from their position across her chest, standing up to her full height.

“I knew about the _one_ box you get a month that you keep in your bedside cabinet. I knew about the _one_ pill you take when you felt anxious from time to time. I **didn’t** know about _this_.”

She’d lifted the empty bottle for emphasis, placing it back down on the counter with a thud.

God, Cheryl needed a fix.

_Fuck fuck fuck fuck_

_You’ve got to play this to your advantage, Cheryl_

**_Don’t end up like your mother_ **

_She’ll leave you, Cheryl_

Cheryl wiped at her face, brushing away a slew of tears with her finger tips.

She hadn’t been sure if the hot skin beneath her hand had been from panic, shame or withdrawal.

“They’re just extras, TT.”

Toni had sucked at her teeth, her hair bouncing about her shoulders as she’d shaken her head.

“Cheryl, _don’t_. Ok? Even **if** I could believe that, _why_ do you have _hundreds_ of extras? _Why_ are they **hidden** in a vitamin bottle, _why_ did you lie about them and _why_ are you popping them every hour of every fucking day?”

Cheryl had been smart enough to know her questions were rhetorical.

Toni’s eyes had softened, blurring at the edges with tears.

“Cher, you told me the jingle jangle was recreational. And I believed you, ok? Why _wouldn’t_ I, you’re my _girlfriend_ , I trust you.”

Cheryl’s eye had twitched.

_That’s a good thing, Cheryl… you can manipulate that…_

_So what if you’re hurting her?_

Toni had sighed, brushing a hand through her hair.

“But _this_ , babe… this is serious. “ She’d caught Cheryl’s eye, swallowing, “I’m worried about you.”

That could not be good.

Worry led to action.

And action led to consequence.

“Cher…what gives, babe?”

Cheryl had flicked her eyes to the empty bottle.

“If you didn’t swallow them then where are they?”

Toni had almost looked guilty, looking up at her through her lashes.

“I flushed them. They’re down the toilet. I couldn’t leave them there in good conscience, Cher. I’m sorry.”

Red had flashed across Cheryl’s vision, a heat burning at the back of her head.

She’d fucking _flushed_ them.

Gone through her stuff and _thrown it away._

_She’ll never understand_

_How **dare** she?_

She’d had her penned in, like a dog in a cage.

Cheryl had had no choice but to bite.

_She’ll take it away from you, Cheryl… your crutch and your **freedom**_

**_She’s trying to control you_ **

She’d narrowed her eyes, her red lips curling backwards, ready to fire words she’d one day regret.

The accusations and the blame and the guilt and the _humiliation_ , all from someone who claimed to love her?

How could someone who loved her make her feel like **this**?

She needed a fix.

“How can _you_ stand there…” She’d whispered, hard eyes fixed to Toni’s face, “All high and mighty? What gives _you_ the right _, Antoinette Topaz_?” Her tone had affected an air of derision, “You’re a Serpent. You’re in a gang. Your friends – your _family_ – used to **sell** drugs. Used to have minors serving at the bar and _dancing_ _on poles_. Your friends are dealers, your homophobic slob of an uncle is a crack-junkie thief, and let’s not even _begin_ to talk about your **_mother_**. And you. You carried a knife, and you fought in parking lots with Ghoulies and you… Toni, you _killed_ my Uncle Bedford.”

She’d watched the colour drain from Toni’s face, her little hands clutching at the countertops as she’d taken a step back, restraining the tears in her eyes valiantly.

_It’s working…_

Cheryl had nodded, tilting her head.

“Oh yes, TT. You took a life that night. And I stood by you. I _helped_ you. I loved and thanked and forgave you. Held you whilst you cried… helped clean up the _blood_ -”

“Cheryl, **stop**. This isn’t you talkin-”

“- _You_ are **not** without sin, Toni. You are not without fault. And yet you stand here, and dare say that _I_ am a worry? You waltz around, shedding your serpent jacket for a figurative social worker coat or judges’ robe, dressing up as some sort of _authority_ on what is moral? You have no _right_ to ambush me and trick me like this. Don’t tell me what is right and wrong, what’s _serious_. And don’t pretend to be something you’re not. You are _hurting_ me.”

_Bravo, Cheryl… bravo…_

The demons inside her head had lauded her with raucous applause.

Toni had taken a second to recover herself, her teeth gnashing anxiously behind her lips as she’d finally managed to find her voice.

“You don’t mean what you’re saying right now.” She’d sounded as if she were trying to convince herself and Cheryl had been hurt by the inference, “I’ve seen this all before. I care about you, Cheryl. I _love_ you. **So** much. And I’m not trying to be judge, jury and executioner here. But you have to face reality. You are waking up every day from a Xanax induced sleep, and popping pills at every chance you can get, hiding them in a bottle, clearly lying to Dr Caligari for extra prescriptions, lying to _me_ , going to work as if you’re functioning, denying your problems , talking to our friends like everything’s normal when deep down _clearly,_ babe… you need **help**. You are whistling past the graveyard. Cheryl, _you’re_ the one playing dress up. You are the one pretending she’s something she’s not.”

She’d taken a step forward then, lifting her hands to place them gently either side of Cheryl’s face, searching her eyes.

“I’m not saying this to hurt you. I’d never want to hurt you, Cheryl. You are the **best** thing in my life. And I _don’t_ feel morally superior to you. If anything… I feel dumb. I feel so fucking stupid and selfish that I was too wrapped up in my life to see that you needed help.”

Cheryl’s heart had ached.

Toni truly believed it was her fault.

_Let her…_

She’d swallowed, lifting pale hands to grip the fabric of Toni’s shirt.

Toni had pressed her forehead to hers.

“I want to _help_ you, Cheryl.”

Cheryl had sighed, wrapping her arms around Toni’s little body and clamping her tightly in her embrace.

_She’ll leave you, Cheryl._

_Tell her what she wants to hear._

“Ok.” She’d whispered, leaning her chin onto Toni’s shoulder and spying the empty bottle on the counter behind.

_You’ll find something else… you’ve done it before_

Toni had gripped her tighter and Cheryl let a devious smirk mar her red lips as her eyes fluttered closed.

“You’re right, TT. I need help. I’m sorry.”

**‘… _It seems as if the past deceitful apologies had all been part of the plan...’_**

When Cheryl had been 13 years old she had argued viciously with her mother one Summer evening.

She’d seen no reason why she had to wear the family tartan to her cousin Crawford’s wedding and instead had screamed her voice hoarse with the insistence that the seamstress tailor her a simple red dress so that she may ‘look more mature’.

Upon Penelope’s last assertion of ‘no’ Cheryl had cursed her, the family name, this house, this _place_ and everyone in it, damned them all to hell and fled down the main staircase and out the door, slamming it behind her.

She’d found herself, seething, wandering to the woods.

The last of the evening sunlight had been dappling through the thick leaves that swayed in the wind, ushering her deeper, and bent about the forest playfully to move the woods around her like a horticulturally bountiful zoetrope.

She’d clenched her hands to fists, practically spitting with rage, kicking tufts of grass in her wake and _yearned_ to destroy something.

As if her prayer were answered by goddess Eris herself, Cheryl had stopped.

Just ahead, had stood a freshly planted tree. A tall, thinly rooted, green with youth, new tree, the first of its branches barely yet sprouted. She could tell from the way the soil at its base had been neatly packed and tidied, surrounded in a carefully architectured circle by multi-coloured tulips, also freshly planted, that someone had taken _time_ to do this.

She’d grinned, vengeful and riddled with spite.

_Perfect._

Then, she had taken a nearby stick, and _hacked_.

Hacked and ploughed and smacked and beaten and thrashed and kicked and stomped, her eyes streaming with angry tears and her hoarse voice crying out a war-scream of pain with each swing of her arms until all that had stood was a stump in the ground, pummelled greenery lying dead in the battle field of bruised tulips; uprooted and shredded, and she’d stood panting, dropping the stick to her feet.

“Cheryl? What are you doing?”

The voice had been familiar.

A classmate of hers.

Billy Barker. A _Southsider_. He’d been accepted into her private middle school on an academic scholarship. Dirt poor but smart, bright, hardworking.

A **great** **future** ahead of him.

Having been caught, Cheryl had fled.

It wasn’t until a day later when the town had awoken to the sight of the slaughtered tree plastered on the front page of the newspaper that Cheryl had discovered it had been recently planted in memory of the Mayor’s, much beloved, dead daughter Molly. Taken, after a valiant fight, by leukaemia: aged 5.

Apparently, she’d always loved that part of the woods.

Tulips had been her favourite flower.

Cheryl had vomited her guilt into the toilet and immediately gone to her Principal.

“I know who destroyed the little girl’s tree in Riverdale woods, Headmistress.”

“Why, whom, Cheryl? This is very, very serious.”

Steadily Cheryl had taken a deep breath, hands clasped tightly behind her back, eye contact never breaking.

“Billy Barker.”

No one ever doubted her.

A poor Southsider, despite his pleas of desperation, was not believed over The Cheryl Blossom.

Cheryl had watched from the front steps, with the rest of the school, as he had been taken away by the Sheriff, spat at and jeered at and heckled for his ‘crime’.

He’d caught her eye.

She had never seen such sorrowful betrayal.

Billy never returned to school.

He had been charged with criminal damage, intent to cause public distress, and vandalism and sentenced to a juvenile detention centre. Public outcry at the sheer violent senselessness of the crime, and Northsider hatred for the Southside, had contributed considerably to the harshness of the punishment but one factor in particular had sealed the deal.

The judge had been Little Molly’s godfather.

It wasn’t until one day in Freshman year at Riverdale High that Cheryl heard of him again.

“Did you hear about Billy Barker?” Kevin had whispered across the Bunsen burner.

Cheryl had felt a chill at her back, shaking her head.

“He lost his scholarship because of juvie. Ended up in a bad crowd in there. Life really sucked for him, apparently, got beaten on a lot for what he’d done and they messed with his head, stole his food all that shit.”

She’d swallowed, her palms growing sweaty as Kevin continued.

“Yeah. So weird, he always seemed such a good kid. I always found him kind-hearted. Nice. A shame for his mom too. She was disabled, Billy’s dad was long gone, she couldn’t work. Billy did some dish-washing at Pop’s and provided for the family. Her and his little brother. They say he’d been walking home from a shift and taken a shortcut through the woods when he did what he did. He was the main caregiver in the family I think. ..”

Cheryl had felt sick.

“…anyway,” Kevin shrugged, taking a reading from the beaker and jotting it to his page, “he got stabbed to death in his cell…”

_No one._

“...All for smashing up a tree. Seems kind sad really…”

_Ever._

“…anyway, his family couldn’t afford a funeral. So he got a municipal grave. A group of people smashed it up with baseball bats out of revenge the day after…”

_Doubted her._

“…Still, Karma. What goes around comes around, I guess.”

Cheryl had never quite recovered from what she had learned that day.

And more than just the tragic news of a poor child of the Southside whose destiny she had destroyed, she had learned one very important thing.

No matter what blame befell her.

And no matter _how_ much she lied.

**No one ever doubted her.**

Cheryl took a deep breath as she settled uncomfortably onto the couch.

She scooted closer to Toni as she took her seat opposite, watching as she bent down to unfasten her towering heels, slipping them from her feet with a sigh.

Cheryl smiled nostalgically to herself.

It’d been so long since they’d sat like this.

She reached over the back of the couch, wrapping her fingers around her coat and taking her time to place it over Toni’s body, tucking it in snugly at the edges.

Toni kept her eyes on Cheryl’s hands.

“How have you been?” Cheryl finally spoke, rubbing her thumb gently across Toni’s covered knee.

Toni’s chest stuttered in a joyless laugh.

“Been better, Cheryl.”

She watched Toni’s lips press together with displeasure.

 _Ugh, that mouth_.

“Yes…” She nodded, swallowing as she shifted her neck, “… and how is… _she?_ ”

Toni stiffened beneath the blanket of her coat, her face visibly pained.

“Stop.” She said softly, turning her head away and biting down on her lips. “I’m don’t wanna talk about that, Cheryl.”

Cheryl frowned, shifting closer.

“Well, surely she can’t approve of you working here-”

“Cher...”

The familiar moniker stopped Cheryl’s sentence in her mouth, her chest aching behind her ribs.

It was soft, barely even whispered, and restrained by the constricted throat of someone who was holding back tears.

“… _Please_.”

Cheryl spied one escaping, rolling down the pretty curve of Toni’s cheek as it caught in the hue of the room’s coloured lights.

_Interesting_

She refrained from continuing, watching as Toni whipped out a hand from beneath the coat to bat the tear away, letting a deep breath out through pursed lips.

Oh, TT.

_She’s hurting._

“It’s so wonderful to be near you again, mon tresor.”

Cheryl reached out her hand, tucking a strand of hair behind Toni’s ear and smiled as Toni turned to catch her gaze, dark eyes drowning in unshed tears, stroking the backs of her fingers to a damp, freckled cheek.

Toni pressed into them, closing her eyes for a moment.

“To be honest, Cher, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

Cheryl swallowed.

_You need a drink._

“All this time, TT. All this time you were still _here_. In the same city.”

Toni shook her head gently, her eyelids flickering open.

“I was away for a while… M-.” She seemed to stop herself from saying the name, struggling with the implications, sickness washing over her face, “… _she_ … took me down South.”

_Very interesting…_

_…She can’t even say her name._

Cheryl tried not to take pleasure in her discovery, masking an interested smile behind concerned eyes and drifted her fingers to Toni’s temple.

“Why didn’t you call, Toni? Why didn’t you try to reach me?”

Toni turned her head to look at her, eyes hardening, and pulled her face from Cheryl’s affectionate fingers.

“Are you serious, Cheryl?”

Oh dear.

She looked almost at her limit, Cheryl mused, exhausted and drained, her face unsure whether to laugh with incredulity or break down and cry.

Her words were weak, but held firm to the intent behind them.

“You made it _perfectly_ clear you never wanted to talk to me again. Do you not remember how that conversation went?”

Cheryl felt sick at the memory, swiping it from her head with a firm squeeze of her eyes.

“You blocked me on _everything_ , you changed the locks, you had the concierge _stop_ me from entering the fucking building.”

“TT, I-”

“-I tried talking to your friends. Oh yeah. I’m sure they didn’t tell you, but I did. I called Josie over and over and over. Every day. Left messages. Every _day_. Not **once**. Did she pick up. Nor Betty. Or Kevin. But, Veronica sent me a message. Said she’d been sad I was gone until she’ _found out what I did’_ …”

_Oh god, Cheryl._

**_‘… the years of dishonest activity…’_ **

_No one ever doubted her._

“…and that I could go fuck myself because I clearly wasn’t the person she thought she knew.”

Toni swallowed a sickened look, shaking her head.

“Overnight, Cheryl. They were gone. They’d been _my_ friends too. Even Jug wouldn’t talk to me. Sweetpea was stationed at a base in Colorado. Fangs was in jail. I had _no one._ No _way_ of reaching you…” She looked down at her hands beneath the coat, shrugging, “…eventually I got the message… you obviously didn’t want to be reached. So I just stopped.”

Yet another child of the Southside whose future she’d crucified.

_God you need a fucking **drink**._

“Look, TT, I didn’t say-.”

“- _whatever_ you said, Cheryl, and _however_ you said it. It worked. Clearly. You’ve always been **very** convincing…”

**No one ever doubted her.**

“… so that’s why I never reached you. Not because I didn’t _try_. Anyway, it’s done now.”

Cheryl wanted to weep.

_She’d tried._

_She’d **wanted** to._

_You could’ve had it all back._

“And after you moved back from wherever you were down South?...” She asked tentatively, fingers playing idly with a button on her coat sleeve.

Toni sucked her teeth, tired eyes tracing the lines of Cheryl’s face as she slid an arm out to rest on the couch.

“That was months later. It had all gone to shit by then. I figured that was it for us.”

Cheryl nodded, sick to her stomach, and lifted her hand to test the waters as she touched it to the back of Toni’s.

Both pairs of eyes stared down at it, watching as Toni slowly unfurled her fingers, opening her palm to let Cheryl encase it in her own.

“Plus, I just couldn’t face it. Not after being rejected like that, and after all that time too… I just… I don’t even know if I _could’ve_ faced you again.”

Cheryl caught her gaze again.

“But… did you think of me? Despite what happened did you miss me at all?”

Toni looked at her, crushed.

“Every fucking minute of every fucking day, Cheryl. What happened… it damn nearly _killed_ me. I’d loved you since we were _16_ , Cher. Of _course_ I missed you…”

_God, how you loved her too…_

_…how you still love her_

Cheryl’s tongue grew dry.

**_You need a drink._ **

She watched as Toni glanced down at their hands.

“…you know, I even went to Thistlehouse. I tried to talk to your mom, see if she could… I don’t know get a message to you or something.”

Cheryl’s eyebrows twitched upwards on her face, her spine straightening in shock.

Her mother had never told her.

Lying bitch.

_Don’t end up like your mother, Cheryl._

“…You did?”

Toni nodded in response.

“What did she say?”

She let out the breath of a shallow laugh, pink hair dancing spritely against her shoulders as she shook her head.

“She was drunk, _of course_ …”

**_Don’t end up like your mother._ **

“…she didn’t say anything. She obviously realised I wouldn’t be there unless something had happened between us and she just laughed. Literally. Opened the door, looked at me, didn’t say a goddamn word... just fucking tossed her head back and cackled and slammed the door. I should’ve known it would play out like that but I was desperate.”

Cheryl’s grip tightened.

“That _witch._ ”

Toni shifted her legs beneath the coat, reaching out her other hand to push her hair back from her face.

“So… how have _you_ been?” She mumbled, reluctant almost in her curiosity.

Cheryl’s ears suddenly picked up once again on the drone of the refrigerator behind and her mind flashed with images of empty bottles and tremoring hands and numb, distraught nights redacted from her memory by the bitter taste of expensive wine.

She shook her head, sighing.

“Been better, TT…”

_Still, Karma…_

“…been better.”

**_… What goes around comes around, I guess._ **


End file.
